Sata hard drive plug in

[jamesho]

Hi dear,
I have just built a new system, with Asus P5B deluxe.
This MB has 6 Sata connectors, 1/2/5/6 Red and 3/4 black.
May I know how to plug in my 2 Sata drives? Can I plug Drive A into 1 ( Red color) as master, and Drive B into 3 (black color) as slave? Or any good suggestion?

Thanks !!

[azzey]

With Serial ATA, there is no 'master' or 'slave'...

[jamesho]

so, should I just plug in any slot...??

[azzey]

Unless you are going to be using RAID, then yes.

[kenja]

Looking at the manual from http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5B%20Deluxe, I can see where the confusion could arise. I think I'd put my non-boot drive on a black connector but really can't think of why it would matter if you're not using "IDE mode". In BIOS, I would use AHCI instead of IDE emulation. If you want the Serial ATA hard disk drives to use the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), set this item to [AHCI]. If you want to use the Serial ATA hard disk drives as Parallel ATA physical storage devices, keep the default setting [IDE]..

ICH8R Serial ATA connectors (7-pin SATA1 [red], SATA2 [red], SATA3 [black], SATA4 [black], SATA5 [red], SATA6 [red])
• These connectors are set to Standard IDE mode by default. In Standard IDE mode, you can connect Serial ATA boot/data hard disk drives to these connectors. If you intend to create a Serial ATA RAID set using these connectors, set the [Configure SATA as] item in the BIOS to [RAID]. See section “4.3.6 IDE Configuration” on page 4-14 for details.
• When using the connectors in Standard IDE mode, connect the primary (boot) hard disk drive to the SATA1/2/5/6 connector. Refer to the table below for the recommended SATA hard disk drive connections.
Serial ATA hard disk drive connection

Use
SATA1/2/5/6
Red
Master
Boot disk

SATA3/4
Black
Slave
Data Disk

[jamesho]

Thank you Kenja.
I think I should go one to #1 and one to #3 as mentioned in the manual.
I am still waiting for my CPU and memory from Fed-EX.

I wonder why the manual not directly guides the user who intended to use Raid to plugin the correct ports. If this is the case the user can follow the guide to set up Bios setting to get "Raid" mode when system is switched on....

but just mention "When using the connectors in Standard IDE mode, connect the primary (boot) hard disk drive to the SATA1/2/5/6 connector. Refer to the table below for the recommended SATA hard disk drive connections......Use
SATA1/2/5/6
Red
Master
Boot disk

SATA3/4
Black
Slave
Data Disk

What is the other port named "Raid" for? The manual is really confusing.

[kenja]

The six SATA connectors grouped together are controlled by the Intel southbridge chip. There is another SATA controller chip, the JMicron JMB363 that has one internal connector (middle, left on the board) and one external connector. If you wanted elaborate or multiple RAIDs, it would probably take some trial and error to set up.

[jamesho]

Thank you Kenja.

I will ask Asus forum to get a clear understanding, will post here for guys.